The King's Agent (9 page)

In the distraction of the grand arrival—in the hubbub of the blaring trumpets, the marquess’s rousing greeting, and the applauding assemblage—Battista slipped from the room, invisible to anyone’s notice ... save one.

The ease with which he passed through the corridors frightened him. Though quiet, the hallway was not completely devoid of inhabitants; Battista passed a swaggering group of young men, clearly drunk and looking for trouble ... a coupling of lovers, the rustling fabric and deep-throated moans revealing what the darkness of the alcove did not. But not a single guard did he spy, nor a suspicious servant did he stumble upon.

He entered a long, window-walled corridor and took a quick moment to scan the sky; the moon was no longer visible in the east, where it had been rising when he entered the palazzo. He had little time left, half an hour perhaps, and he would lose his accomplice and Frado’s assistance in escape.

Battista trod the fine line between a walk and a run, long legs gobbling the floor with determined strides. He made it to the northeast corner of the palace and the circular stairway tucked away within its spiral. He dared to run up them, safe in the seclusion of the dark stone walls.

At the top, he turned left—corrected himself—turned right.

The passageway was not as wide on this floor as the one below. Along each side, doors alternated positions with wall sconces, each fixture resembling a sword pointing at the floor with the flame flickering from the cupped pommel, each door closed and gilded with gold.

Battista’s breath quickened as the moment of acquisition at last arrived. He counted the doors on his left, grateful he needed the third and not another of the many stretching down the long corridor before him.

He came up short at the portal, imbalanced by the lack of padlock. A brief, scourging warning of entrapment crossed his thoughts and he erased it with logic, if a trifle convoluted. A man such as the marquess of Mantua would be secure with the efficiency of his guards; he would feel no need to lock away his treasures.

Sheer folly.
Battista smirked at the inferiority of the man supposedly superior by birth.

He opened the door, entered the room, and closed it behind him with the silence and grace of a dancer. With his back to the portal, he surveyed the room, one lit by three sconces lined up along the far wall, a chamber unlike any he had imagined or expected.

At first glance, the most singular item within these walls appeared to be the Persian carpet covering a gleaming dark wood floor, its maroon background the host for the thick green tree and the golden fruit hanging from its curled branches. The walls were bare save for the round, brass sconces.

There were no trophies in the trophy room. Battista took two steps farther in, thrusting fisted hands onto hips in agitation.

That’s when he saw it.

The chest was made of wood, of that he was sure, but of such a dark cast he could not deduce its variety. This very darkness kept it almost hidden from view, immersed in the shadows beneath the three light fixtures hanging above, tossing their light foolishly upward to the beamed ceiling overhead. Battista gloated with a satisfaction about to be met.

He rushed across the expanse of the room, steps silent upon the resplendent rug, and sunk to his knees before the mammoth trunk. The paintings he sought must still be in frames, he surmised from the vast breadth of the chest, and he cursed the time it would take to pry them from their casings.

He set to work on the padlocks securing the three encompassing steel bands. The locks were not as intricately formed as he expected, but were merely basic shapes, a circle, a cloverleaf, and an inverted triangle, but the mechanisms proved far more difficult than their simplistic construction foretold. He worked his small pin in each hole, the clicking of metal upon metal drowned out by the clock ticking dangerously in his mind.

“Finally!” He grunted with exasperation to the empty room as the third lock fell away beneath his fingers. He flicked at each one, sending them dropping into a waiting palm, placing them quietly on the floor at his knees. With two hands, he hefted open the heavy domed cover and looked in.

“What the devil ... ?”

Battista’s clipped words echoed in the almost-empty trunk, one large enough to hold two men. He sat back on his haunches, hands on his thighs, as he studied the one item within with ill-disguised disgust.

At the bottom of the otherwise empty chest lay a scroll, a curled and beribboned length of golden parchment no larger than his hand. He shook his head as if to deny its very existence, leaned forward as if to chastise it, but stopped—squinted and held. Lengthwise along the outside of the parchment had been inscribed two words,
Giotto’s Triptych.

This scroll was not the triptych, he groused silently with a petulant purse of his lips. It was, however, most assuredly some piece of the escalating conundrum surrounding the painting. Raising himself up, Battista tipped his head into the cavernous box. With a scrunch of his nose, he sniffed ... then sniffed again. It smelled caustic, as though the wood had been recently painted, but with a most toxic-smelling lacquer.

He brushed away the worry of the stench. He had to leave; he had pushed all boundaries of safety having stayed as long as he had. He was quite sure Frado neared panic, as the moment of Battista’s agreed time to retreat must surely be upon them.

In the same movement that brought him to his feet, Battista bent over and snatched the parchment from the bottom of the chest.

Less than a second passed, less than one step away did he take, when the sharp click rang out.

From beneath the trunk it came, the grating noise disturbing in its own right.

Battista swiveled back. Before his eyes, the impossible happened.

As if released by the detraction of the parchment, the bottom of the trunk fell away, splashing into some sort of liquid-filled basin waiting the few inches below, visible only when he bent all the way over, cheek skimming the floor as he spied the container hidden behind the stubby claw footing of the chest. Instantly smoke belched up and out, great funnels of dark gray vapors streaming out of the chest and filling the room.

Battista jumped up and back as if to avoid it, but the rancid billow enveloped him, as it did the chamber. His eyes watered; his throat closed against the harsh air. He staggered around trying to regain his bearings, one thought louder than any other.

A trap.

He had known deep in his being that accessibility had been far too easy. He cursed himself for his stupidity. The Gonzaga family had been powerful for centuries; they did not do so by being naïve. He had to get out—he had to escape before the smoke escaped from beneath the crack of the door, before the noxious odor and thick gray fumes alerted the guards to his nefarious actions.

Battista spied the door. Stashing the scroll safely in his satchel, he stepped toward it.

And then things grew worse ... much worse.

The flames ignited and swooshed through the room as if to devour it with one lick of their destructive tongue. The propulsion of heat tossed Battista against the wall. He held his hands to his ears as if to prevent the ringing from bursting in his head.

But the explosion did not clang, but a bell ... three bells in fact. One hidden within each sconce on the wall behind the chest, each sent into motion by the waves of heat-propelled air. The riotous clash was as loud as the bells atop Florence’s churches, those that filled the entire city when calling the faithful to service.

Move!
The thought seared his brain as the flames seared the wooden floor. Finding nothing to grasp upon the stone walls, it spread its destruction along the planks beneath his feet. If he didn’t move now he would surely fall through, to the guard and the prison waiting, no doubt, on the floor below.

Battista jumped through the door, slamming it closed behind him, hoping to keep as much of the vapors trapped within as possible. He turned right, the spiral staircase the intended goal.

Too late.

From out of the stone stairwell guards rushed at him, armored, sword-toting guards, bearing rapidly down upon him.

He spun away, reversing direction and tearing down the corridor, shoulders hunched, head down, as if he ran upon the
calcio
field. Daring to sneak a look over his shoulder, Battista saw one of the three guards enter the room—perhaps to douse the flames, though Battista recalled nothing he had seen to use—the other two giving chase ... fast.

“
Stunad,
” he cursed himself for his stupidity, for failing to plan for a different path of escape. He suffered now for his own arrogance. He had no time to slow his pace and find the right room, the correct door to lead to the chamber that would lead to the loggia, and Frado beneath it. Battista ran, ran and prayed his exertions would lead him out.

He turned, turned, and turned again, somehow finding himself back at a circular staircase, though if this was the same that had brought him up he could not be sure. Heading down might mean a better chance for finding the way out. Three steps down ...

. . . and the guards rushed up at him from below.

With a growl of anger, Battista reeled, running back up. But instead of heading down the corridor, he ascended the next circle of stairs rising upward, hoping the third floor provided a more apparent egress. The clang of armor and sword, the pounding of boot heel on stone, impelled him faster and faster. But not fast enough.

His gaze rose above the ledge of the next floor, his right foot gained the top step, when the pain seared through his left calf.

With an outraged bellow, Battista fell, top step colliding with his gut, purging the air from his lungs. He swiveled round, looked down. The dagger penetrating his flesh hung from his leg; the guard who had engorged him stood just inches below.

Battista kicked out his good leg, heel colliding with the guard’s face. The guard pinwheeled his arms, to no effect. Eyes closed in pain, blood spurting from his nose and mouth, he fell backward, falling on another guard, who fell on yet another.

There was no time to bask in the comedy of the triumph; trained soldiers would be back on their feet—back at him—in seconds. Battista reached down and before his thoughts stopped him, he pulled the dagger from his calf with a grimace. Blood spurted from the wound, staining the dusty gray stone with its red wretchedness.

He jumped to his feet, brushing impatiently at the strands of sweat-soaked black hair hanging in his face, teeth gnashing at the pain exploding in his leg. A few steps into the corridor and it widened to a large alcove on his right, one filled with two wing chairs and a table set before a cold fireplace, a gathering space for a small, intimate party.

Battista grabbed one chair and hurled it down the stairs. The crashing of wood and stone met with the cries of pain and protest. He grabbed the other chair and did the same, then again with the table, knowing the three pieces would create a bountiful bottleneck in the curved stairwell.

With a hobble, he set off again, no time to waste.

Another long corridor stretched before him with only a turn at the end. He could not engage in another footrace; the wound slowed him far too much. Battista lurched into the first door on the right. If he had kept his head at all, if his unfailing sense of direction had not failed him, the room would be located along the eastern wall.

The starlit sky beyond leaded glass was the first sight he glimpsed within the room, the lack of balcony was the heartbreaking second. He limped to the windows, threw open the sash, and looked down. Battista wondered, with more than a dollop of derision, how many people he would kill along with himself when he hurtled his body out.

“Stop, you fool!”

The harsh feminine cry froze his hand upon the sill, his knee halfway up. He hopped on his good leg, turning round, pulling two daggers out of his belt, one for each hand.

She stood in a dark recess, a door with no frame, a hidden aperture he had not seen or fathomed. The quick impression of her beauty took a backseat to the certainty of her ill-concealed impatience.

“You’ll never walk away from that drop. This way.” She gestured a beckoning hand. “I’ll get you out.”

Battista appraised her, seeing more than just the petulant look of annoyance on her porcelain-skinned face. She held no weapon, nor anything to impede or wound him, and she wore an exquisite brocade gown, a noblewoman ... a hothouse, defenseless flower.

Battista stole another quick glance to the ground far below. She was right, of course, and he knew it. She had called him a fool. With a shrug, he took the first step on what might well be a fool’s errand. He followed her.

She led him through the dark room behind her, straight for another door. Stopping before it, she hissed at him, “Grab my arm.”

Battista blanched. “What?”

She grabbed his hand, placed it on her opposite arm, and squeezed his fingers round it.

“Keep hold.”

Without another word of explanation, she opened the door, out onto another corridor, one narrow and ill lit.

A cry of alarm rang out, but the woman did nothing to acknowledge it.

Battista spun to their right, saw the two guards at the far end, and opened his mouth. Before a sound escaped his throat, his savior opened another door directly opposite the one they had left behind. On the other side of it, the woman flung a bolt, locking the guards out, but for how long Battista could not guess.

The room inside was softly lit, aglow from candlelight and fireplace flame. Pink and green lace festooned every piece of fabric. Battista almost laughed at the frivolous absurdity of it.

“You have an affinity for lace,” he managed as she rushed him diagonally through the large, luxuriant chamber.

She doused his sarcasm with a withering look. “It is not my room. It is Isabella’s, the mistress. She is still downstairs, well enough for you. Now hurry.”

In the far corner, she pushed at the wall, and once more a hidden door revealed itself. He stepped through quickly, right behind her, and looked back as the partition slowly closed of its own volition. Upon the wood floor, across the matching pink and green carpet, he had left a red-splotched trail of blood, an arrow pointing directly to their means of escape.